Putting to rest years of speculation, Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Warren Buffett finally confirmed on Monday that Gregory Abel, 59, a vice-chairman of the $640-billion company, would be his successor.

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“The directors are in agreement that if something were to happen to me tonight, it would be Greg who’d take over tomorrow morning,” Buffett told CNBC on May 3.

According to the CNBC report, besides Abel another vice-chairman Ajit Jain, 69, was also seen as a possible successor to 90-year-old Buffett. Both Abel and Jain were promoted to the post of vice-chairman at Berkshire in 2018.

Buffett told CNBC that Jain would be next in line after Abel, as the younger vice-chairman would likely have more time at the reins of the company.

Who is Greg Abel?

Abel has been with Berkshire for more than two decades, most recently as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE).

According to the CNBC report, born in Edmonton, Canada, Abel said he grew up in a working-class neighbourhood and his father was a salesman. He loves hockey and currently serves on the board of directors of Hockey Canada Foundation.

“I remember getting together with other neighbourhood kids as soon as we could after school. We played hockey nearly every day, and stayed out until we were called in for dinner,” CNBC quoted Abel as saying in an interview in 2018.

During his growing-up years, Abel did odd jobs like delivering advertising flyers and filling fire extinguishers for Levitt Safety, the company where his father worked, the CNBC report mentioned.

He graduated from University of Alberta in 1984 with a degree in commerce. After his graduation, he started working as an accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Then he joined CalEnergy, which later became MidAmerican Energy. He went on to become the energy company’s president by 1999 when Berkshire acquired a controlling interest in MidAmerican. He became the CEO of MidAmerican in 2008 and the company later changed its name to Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Abel oversees Berkshire’s energy holdings, including the coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, and nuclear energy subsidiaries. BHE, which has over 23,800 employees, reported more than $20.9 billion in revenue in 2020.

Abel also serves on the board of directors for other firms like The Kraft Heinz Company (in which Berkshire owns a minority stake), and AEGIS Insurance Services.

Abel drew a base salary of $16 million in both 2019 and 2020, along with annual bonuses of $3 million each, according to Berkshire’s SEC filings as reported by CNBC.

(Edited by : Shoma)